Ukee vs. the Big Smoke: A totally biased contrast of news articles.

Over the past four months, while Kat & I have researched the business prospects and planned our transplantation, I’ve been reading a lot of Ukee news. Sometimes I tune into CBC Victoria, sometimes CBC Toronto. Sometimes I read the Westcoaster, sometimes the Toronto Star. You can’t help but compare.

Toronto is in a huff right now over the prospect that will not die: A highway to Toronto Island. The Toronto Island is one of the last truly pretty places in the GTA, and you can get there by public transit. There are three lovely beaches to bask upon. The Island has been my little nature retreat.

Why do they want cars on the Island? They want to expand the Island airport. So not only will you have cars and smog on the island, you’ll have commercial air planes jolting you from you nap in the sand and drowning out your conversation with your friends at an impromptu picnic.

The prospectors were trying to get a bridge to the island built about 8 years ago. They were smacked down by newly elected mayor who was brought to power by a mass of outraged Torontonians. People said the bridge would be an eyesore and an obstacle for shipping vessels.

Well now the bridge has risen again, but in the form of a tunnel. An underground bowel. The tunnel-pushers argue that the tunnel is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the bridge, never mind the environmental nightmare to built it.

All I know is, once you start allowing general traffic on the Island, it’s ALL OVER. The Torontonian’s last refuge away from smog and traffic noise will have died an undignified death.

Toronto’s roads and highways are the strands on this spider’s web. Sometimes home, sometimes a terrifying trap. While the GTA is packed with the swirling intestines of Ontario, Vancouver Island has only one two-lane road going East to West, providing road access to Ucluelet and Tofino.

This road was not even paved until the 1980s, and only then was the glorified logging road renamed Highway 4. It’s not really a highway by Ontario standards though. In many places the speed limit is 30 km/h. The blind switchbacks snaking up the mountainside make safe passing impossible, so drivers are expected to use courtesy “pull outs” – paved sections on the side of the road where you are to pull over and allow more experienced drivers to pass.

Toronto’s Mayor David Miller has really made an effort to make Toronto a greener city. He has pushed to get 70% of Toronto’s garbage diverted from landfills into recycling plants. Well, never mind that Toronto ships it’s recycling to Asia to be sorted, burdening the environmentally-friendly recycling program with a heavy carbon price tag. It’s the thought that counts, right?

Another recent brainwave was to build a wind farm on the Scarborough Bluffs. The Bluffs is one of the few pretty places left in Scarborough, and it’s a marvel. The side of the bluffs reveals over 500 MILLION years of the earth’s history. You can count the ages in the horizontal stripes on the hillside. It’s full of fossils of ancient sea creatures that pre-date any earthling with a spine. But never mind, let’s build over 400 windmills on it and block it off from public access. It’s not even a particularly windy place. Naturally, the residents were outraged: http://www.savethebluffs.ca/

And there’s Ukee, sitting in smug contrast on the other side of the country. If Ucluelet had a garbage strike, it wouldn’t be possums and rats taking over the parks, it would be black bears. Dozens of black bears would become accustomed to humans, and learn to associate green garbage bins with food. They would have to be shot if they start seeking people out. This is why Ucluelet developed it’s award-winning bear-proof garbage management system. http://www.bearmatters.com/archives/date/2008/08

I don’t know how this is going to work – I guess we’ll find out. I know you’re not supposed to store garbage outside, and in some places you’re advised to freeze your food scraps until pickup day. There is no outdoor composting. Learning to live with bears is a skill Kat & I will have to acquire.

And then there’s crime. Obviously, Toronto has more violent crime than a teeny town of population 2,000. But the contrast is still funny:

And the pot. We Canadians just love our pot. Every time there’s a news article about a bust on CBC radio, pages of comments spread out demanding “LEGALIZE IT!” Everyone has different reasons for wanting decriminalization.

North of Ucluelet, Tofino has some interesting news stories too. This fall a missing surfer was found after an extensive (and expensive) search when she showed up back home after disappearing for several days (without telling anyone or notifying her workplace.) Turns out she had been meditating in the bush. http://www.westcoaster.ca/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=7220

Just google “Toronto” and “Missing” for the GTA’s current list of hijacks and kidnappings.

In Toronto, the municipal police allegedly indulged in their own crime spree and there is an ongoing investigation by the RCMP: http://www.thestar.com/article/418644 Isn’t there some saying about the inmates taking over the asylum?

There’s another saying: You can judge a society by how it treats the vulnerable. Well this last contrast is quite telling.